Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that the electoral bond scheme was the “world’s biggest extortion racket’ which is run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Addressing a press conference in Maharashtra, Gandhi said that when the concept of electoral bonds was introduced, it was claimed by the PM that the scheme was designed to clean up the Indian political finance but it has turned out to be “a way of extorting money from India’s largest corporates, a method of stealing money for the biggest contracts in the country, intimidating corporates, and forcing them to donate money to the BJP.”
Gandhi admitted that the other political parties too had received money through electoral bonds but he stated “None of the Opposition parties have access to contracts at the national level.” He said that Opposition parties do not control government entities such as CBI, IT or ED and maintained that these are all controlled directly by the BJP and the PM of India.
“This is criminal extortion. Corporates are scared and under pressure”, the Congress leader said.
The data on electoral bonds disclosed by State Bank of India (SBI) and published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday shows that BJP received Rs 6,060.51 crore or 47 per cent from donors, mostly corporates, while its biggest opposition party, Congress received Rs 1,421.87 crore which is 11%.
Read more: Congress demands inquiry on electoral bond, immediate freezing of BJP’s accounts
